


bellona and mars

by kallliope



Category: Atomic Blonde (2017), John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Drinking, Fighting, Smoking, two badasses having enough of your shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 14:19:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11761716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallliope/pseuds/kallliope
Summary: A year after Lorraine arrives in the States, she meets an interesting individual at a bar.And this time, it's strictly business.





	bellona and mars

**Author's Note:**

> This is timeline concentrated, so this features a much younger John Wick doing the impossible task to get out of the bratva and marry Helen.

* * *

**"We live in a dangerous world. If you see a chance to be happy, you have to fight for it, so later you have no regrets.”**  
―Ilona Andrews,  _Magic Bleeds_

* * *

Laura Boughton loved Leitch's. 

Terrible service, menacing regulars, and the chance of bar fights every Tuesday: just the kind of place where someone like Lorraine Broughton could disappear. 

Every Friday evening, she'd breeze through the door, ignore the stares from those sipping beer, and gulp down glass after glass to stop thinking about an entrancing French investigator. This day was no different; she weaved through the crowd in a snow white coat, a pale specter amidst a sea of black and navy. Lorraine sat down in front of the bar, and the bartender only had to look up once to see her before starting on her usual. 

In half a minute, a glass brimming with Stoli slid down the bar, just managing to graze her fingertips. 

"Thanks, David." she said, slipping him a few rolled dollars. 

David took the money with a polite nod and went back to wiping the bar down. Lorraine sipped her drink: other than the slight aftertaste of gin on the glass rim (for all his cleanliness, David couldn't clean glasses worth a damn), it tasted refreshing, almost bitterly sweet.

She'd polished off half her drink when the man stumbled in. 

The voices in the bar dropped to a lull at the sight of the man, who sported some nasty bruises on his face and a deep cut on his neck. His dark hair dangled in front of him in limp strands and his uneven side burns were splattered with blood. Lorraine straightened herself. During her time at Leitch's, she'd seen drunks, wanderers, and the occasional asshole itching for a fight. This one was none of them; his black suit clung to him in sharp, tailored lines—much too expensive for a typical bar cruiser to wear. Just from one glance, she could tell he carried danger in his shoe linings.

The man looked, Lorraine thought, like a loaded gun. 

David started to come over, but one look from the man sent him retreating. The mystery man slumped into the seat next to Lorraine's and eyed her half-full glass warily. 

The universe must love giving her _déjà vu._

"Rough night?" she asked, nodding to the man's neck wound. 

The man gave her a blank stare before he grabbed her glass and chugged its contents down. Lorraine raised an eyebrow, and the people nearest to her started leaning away. The last time someone stole her drink, he'd ended up with a dislocated shoulder and a broken wrist. 

"Yeah," the stranger eventually muttered. "You could say that."

His eyes scrutinized Lorraine, rested for a second on her fingers. 

Her bleeding, newly scarred fingers.

 _Fuck._ Moving here made her sloppy. 

"You too, huh?" The man asked, dragging a hand across his beard. Dime-sized droplets of blood splattered the bar surface. Lorraine could  _hear_  David wince. 

"Nothing I couldn't handle." she said, with a ghost of a smile. "How many?"

"Four and counting." 

He gazed at her, and Lorraine knew he'd started to see what no one else in the bar could see sober: the fading bruises on her cheek, the red indents on her throat, and the small scars under her left eye. 

"You don't work here."

She tilted her head at him. "And I don't plan to in the future, if _you're_ the type that's running around this area." 

"Did the bratva call you here?"

Lorraine's lip curled. "I'm here for no one. Besides, Viggo has an unhealthy obsession in keeping loyal dogs."

"Wish I'd known sooner." the man said, signaling David for a bourbon. 

Lorraine interrupted as David scribbled his order down on a notepad. "Make it two."

The stranger shifted uneasily and Lorraine rolled her eyes.

"You're going to need someone to drink with you. Hate to see someone unable to share mutual agony from David's bourbon."

"Your faith always flatters me, Boughton." David said drily, before walking away to make the drinks. 

A flash of recognition appeared in the stranger's eyes. "Boughton?" 

Lorraine drew out a pack of Marlboros and shook out a single cigarette. "Didn't think the bratva took booze breaks between fights."

"It's a lot more personal than you'd think, Agent Satchel. Congratulations on your death in Paris, by the way."

She grumbled, lighting her cigarette. "Figures Bremovych blabbed to his mafia friends. Were the bloodstains in the hotel room convincing enough?"

"If you mean enough to fool only the cops, yeah."

"Damn. Then I'll have to make another cover." 

"I don't think you'll need it, really." 

As the drinks came out, Lorraine thanked David, who just smirked and left the bar for a short break, leaving his notepad and pencil behind. It was obvious he thought she needed it for this guy's number.

Lorraine turned back to the stranger, hand outstretched. "Well then, if Satchel's blown, I'll reintroduce myself. Lorraine Broughton."

The man hesitated, before taking her hand and shaking it. "John Wick." 

Lorraine raised her glass. "Well, John, cheers to your sharp eyes."

John slowly clinked his glass with hers and gulped the bourbon down.

No sooner than they'd finished, a group of dark suited men trooped into the bar, guns raised. 

John sighed, and set down his glass. "Sorry I interrupted your night break."

"Please," she said, stubbing out her cigarette and drawing a shining Glock from her boot. "It's been a while since I've had some real contenders."

* * *

"Why the  _hell_  can't you bastards shoot?" one of the men screamed, before Lorraine cut him off with a quick shot to the head.

John, however, was busy fighting a man twice his size. His opponent roared and rushed at him, but John just dove across the bar, grabbed the bottle of bourbon he and Lorraine emptied, and smashed it against the man's head. The thug went down with a shaking crash. 

"Don't do that again," Lorraine called, killing another goon and peeling one of his leather gloves off. "David gets territorial over everything here." 

John clipped a fresh magazine into his gun and calmly shot out the kneecaps on another man. "I'm sure he can't complain about a reputation."

"Trust me, the man wants a clean slate for his bar. Three o'clock!" 

John turned and flipped the oncoming attacker over his shoulder, slamming him down on the floor. The man groaned, and blood started to ooze from his back - the broken shards of the bourbon bottle had cut into his jacket. 

"That's one of the strangest ironies I've ever heard; if  _you're_  drinking here, that's a sign he might need to change the place's image. Your left."

Lorraine ducked, stretched the glove in her hand, and wrapped it around her attacker's neck until he choked. When another man tried to knife her from behind, she whipped around and fired three times into his chest.

"Well," she replied, kicking yet another goon in the crotch. "David's never been great with tactics." 

As Lorraine said this, someone grabbed her from behind and made her fall to her knees. She reared her head back; Lorraine heard a satisfying crack, but the grip on her shoulders still stayed. A gloved hand forced her head up.

"Now, why don't we just sit here and watch your boyfriend get his ass beat?" a low voice hissed in her ear. "Then we'll move on to you." 

As she struggled, Lorraine took in the sight of John now fighting three men at once. As the men started to corner him, John grabbed the pencil David left on the counter top and stabbed it into one of the goons' neck. The second one hastily tried to pull out his gun, and got an eyeful of graphite for his troubles. 

"What the  _fuck,_ " the man holding Lorraine breathed, shifting his hands on her shoulders uneasily. 

She laughed under her breath, leaned down, and sunk her teeth into one of the man's digits. Her captor shrieked in pain, releasing her, giving her the perfect chance to ram her arm into his neck and steal his gun. 

A bloody pencil flew into the man's head just as Lorraine pulled the trigger under his chin.

When the smoke cleared, she and John were the only ones standing in the bar. The bar guests had fled a long time ago, and the ones on the floor were dead, dying, or cowering in fear. 

The two of them stared at one another before throwing their empty guns away and walking out of the bar in complete silence. 

Outside, the last remnants of sunset stretched out across the skyline. The lights of the city's skyscrapers started to flicker on like tiny lightbulbs.

"A fucking pencil?" Lorraine finally asked, smirking.  

"It was that or throw the gun at his face." 

"Not a bad idea, if you ask me."

Another beat of silence. Both of them tensed when they heard the faint, but familiar wailing of police sirens.

"I saw too many different faces in there for just one mob." Lorraine remarked casually, straightening her spotless white coat. 

John messily wiped some blood stains off the edge of his tie. "Yeah. Viggo sent me into a hornet's nest." 

She glanced at him sharply. "Who's it for?"

"I told you—" 

John stopped when he saw the look on her face, and sighed. 

"Retirement." 

Lorraine grimaced as she remembered the laughs inside a neon-lit club and dark hair curling in the crook of a brown neck. "They don't know, do they." 

"No idea," John said soberly. "She deserves a hell of a lot better."

"But you're willing to try," Lorraine replied, rummaging in her bag. "That's a damn sight better than what I did."

"What did you do?" 

Lorraine paused and suddenly felt more vulnerable than she had in months. "I let her go. She died not long after."

John stayed silent as she shook out the black sunglasses from her bag, but as soon as she put them on, he started again. "We don't deserve them."

"No." she said nonchalantly. "But I hope for your sake she'll never find out." 

Lorraine walked to the west, the last dazzling rays of sunlight bouncing off her sunglasses and illuminating her white coat, while John went to the east, the murky stretches of twilight seeping into his black suit. 

**Author's Note:**

> _give me this crossover leitch_


End file.
